The hypertext markup language (or HTML) is commonly used to define the structure for presenting content in a web-page. Web pages that are prepared using HTML can be viewed with a variety of web browser application programs. In addition, HTML web pages can be viewed on different computing systems that may otherwise be incompatible with one another. As such, HTML has been adopted throughout the computing community as a common platform for web page development to provide transportability of content between computing systems.
HTML employs a set of standard codes or “markup tags” that are used to define the format (e.g., text color, font size, etc.) and location associated with text, images, and other content. In general, a web browser builds a web page by retrieving the text file associated with the web page and interpreting the markup tags in the text file to format the web page for viewing. An example web page typically includes text, graphic images, and links to other web pages. Graphics images and remote executable programs such as binary executables are downloaded onto the local machine so that the web page can be built appropriately.
Typical web browsers will prompt a user for a decision on installing executable programs that are necessary for the display of content associated with a web page. Example executables include plug-ins, active-x controls, as well as others. In some instances, the web browser does not prompt the user for a decision based on MIME type information that is being reported to the browser. For example, a .JPG file is a graphics image that may be associated with an HTTP request. In this example, the web browser will simply display the image without requiring user interaction.